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Is 'Grand Theft Auto 4' Bigger Than Movies, Music, and Books?

by Will Safer on April 30, 2008 at 01:09 PM



'Grand Theft Auto IV' – or simply 'GTA4' to video game fans in the know – is poised to break sales records during its first week of commercial release, with industry experts predicting it will sell about 6 million copies and make close to $400 million. Though the immense crossover mainstream popularity of the GTA franchise can't be ignored entirely, these big numbers are due in large part to this latest version of the violent game franchise from Rockstar Games being playable on both the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, where previous versions were only compatible with the Sony platform.

But how does this expected game-buying frenzy compare to other entertainment product sales, such as in music, movies, and books?

Well, Mariah Carey's latest number one album E=MC2 debuted with opening week sales of 463,000 copies, reestablishing the diva as a major force in pop music. Impressive numbers for an album but nowhere close to GTA4's expected performance.

How about movies? 'Spider Man 3' opened the weekend of May 4, 2007, on 4,252 screens, taking in an average of $35,540 per screen for a record first weekend total of $151,116,080, eventually on its way to a gross of $336,530,303. Again, big numbers but still short of what's expected for GTA4.

In books, the best seller "A Thousand Splendid Suns," Khaled Hosseini's follow-up novel to his best selling "The Kite Runner," had a first-run printing of 1,255,000 copies, with additional printings required almost every day its first week to keep pace with demand.

In each category, the numbers speak to the different overall popularity and accessibility of the content. Lest you become too concerned that reading is a lost cause in the face of video games, you should know that video game enthusiasts (as is the case with movie enthusiasts) tend to coalesce around a small collection of popular titles, while even best selling books are themselves still a niche product with targeted audiences. (Case in point: Oprah's Book Club.)

So, how hard would it be for you to get your hands on a copy of GTA4? Reports abound of the crime inspired game inspiring criminal acts all its own, with some UPS drivers being accused of "rerouting" copies of the game discs intended for consumer delivery. (For shame.)

Still, we assume those count as sales.

Grand Theft Auto IV


Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, expire-images2009-4-30, gtaiv

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